


The Revelation

by annhamilton



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Adam wrote Good Omens, Archive of our Own - Freeform, Crowley helped inspire ao3, Fanfic in fanfic, Fluff, International Fanworks Day 2020, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 16:00:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22498717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annhamilton/pseuds/annhamilton
Summary: Aziraphale turned the computer on and after allowing a few moments for the thing to, rather miraculously boot up and typed into the search bar with the blocky keys: archive of our own.Aziraphale discovers fanfiction, Good Omens, cries a little, gets an email account, gets his nerve, opens in a new tab, takes a leap of faith and gets his man(shaped occult being). More or less in that order.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 78
Collections: International Fanworks Day 2020





	The Revelation

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Internation Fanworks Day 2020. I just couldn't help myself once I saw the prompt.

See the thing with fandoms and fan culture is that Aziraphel thinks the knows a lot about it. He used to be very active in early book clubs. He’s dinned and talked with Shakesphere about love and tragedy and the reality of the human condition. He’s talked with Jace Austen about feminism and societal norms and subversion. He’s discussed language and war with J.R.R Tolkien. 

He’s experienced, or at least he thought he was. 

The Revelation (“Really Aziraphel we don’t need to capitalize everything.” “Be quiet, Crowley.") happened in around 2032, years and years after the apocalypse, when Aziraphel was tending to a translation of a first edition in the backroom of the bookshop and Crowley was scrolling through his phone. 15sh years of peace has led them into a very comfortable relationship, they eat, they drink, they talk. To them, 15 years isn’t that long of a time. 

“You do know you may get more entertainment from reading a nice book and not scrolling endlessly,” Aziraphale said, only a bit bored and looking to rehash his argument with new points he came up with a few days ago. 

“I am reading, angel,” Crowley looked up from his phone. 

“Oh,” Aziraphel brushed the imaginary dust off his trousers. “What are you reading, my dear.” 

“Nothing you’d know.” 

“Try me.” 

“Angel, you really don’t this one.” 

“I do read modern works,” Aziraphale wasn’t technically lying. Don Quixote was considered modern after all and he has a copy of it somewhere. “Try me.” 

Crowley rose an eyebrow. “It’s fanfiction.” 

_Fanfiction?_ On some abstract level, he knew of fanfiction. It was fiction by fans. It makes sense, except for one thing. “What about copyright?” 

Crowley laughed. “It’s all free, angel. All of it. Get’s by the law. It’s one of mine.” 

“What? You wrote the first fanfiction?” It seemed far off from Crowley who’d never shown any interest in writing. 

“No, people have been writing fanfiction for decades but I helped make it more mainstream, get it off the dark parts of the internet and into the light.”

“How.” 

“Well there were websites but the were run my money hungry assholes who weren’t even in fandoms and they shaming people within the sites and censoring and taking down many works so I gave a little motivation to an internet coup and they made their own site. Well ‘sites. Archive of Our Own is the main one, has a whole legal team to tell authors to fuck themselves.”

Aziraphale only had one question, usually, Crowley’s to ask but Aziraphale needed to ask. “Why?”

“Because some people hate it, this site has no censorship and doesn’t bow to authors whims. It was made out of spite, angel. A whole functioning website run on donations to give a middle finger to other ‘sites and their issues.”

Aziraphale was speechless, he opened and closed his mouth several times. “That’s the only reason?” 

“Aziraphale.” Crowley was almost hissing. “Don’t.”

Aziraphale held his hands up in mock surrender. “I didn’t say anything.” 

“You thought it.” 

‘Well, it’s not mean,” Aziraphale met him in the middle, leaving the nice rather loudly unsaid. 

“Whatever,” Crowley turned back to his phone. 

Aziraphale looked down at his translation and wondered if he should try something new. 

***

Aziraphale did have a computer, it was an old desktop that was bulky and dusty and he only has it because Crowley gave it to him. _‘This is the future, angel.’_

It rested in a back room, so far back those with any sense of spacial awareness and architecture will wonder how exactly it fits into the building. Aziraphale turned the computer on and after allowing a few moments for the thing to, rather miraculously boot up and typed into the search bar with the blocky keys: _archive of our own._

The nifty thing brought up a link and Azriaphale clicked on it, the thing hummed. It was running on miracles but not Aziaraphale’s. 

Under _Find Your Favorites_ he clicked Books and Literature, and just like Alice, down the rabbit hole he went. 

Not knowing any better he scrolled through the list of books searching for some of his favorites. _Don Quijote de la Mancha | Don Quixote - Miguel de_ had a shockingly low number of works, a small 15. The writing wasn’t quite his taste but with over many millions works there had to be something for him. _Les Misérables - Victor Hugo_ had so many works he didn’t even know where to start. As he sifted through the works he wrote down the title and author and promised himself he would get back to them, he was having too much fun reading all the summaries and choosing what to read.

As he made it to page 5 he grew a tad bit confused. Some of the, what do they call it, tags were a bit weird. He went up to the search bar and typed _archive of our own au tag meaning._

And down the hole, he fell. 

***

Aziraphale spend hours sitting at his computer, he set up an email address to comment on the lovely writers’ works, and set himself up for an invite—how fancy just like in the old ways he waited for the response. It did say it would take a few days so he continued to sift through the archive. He made himself some tea and started to look up the names of the works he wrote down. 

The word count was rather helpful and so were the ratings. He wasn’t a prude but he wasn’t in the mood for, what do the tags say? 

_Porn without Plot._

He had long ventured out of Les Misérables and had found some curious fandoms, Real Person Fiction was quite the phenomena and Aziraphale found some rather good works on the Founding Fathers of the U.S. Musicals has fanfictions and he kept going through the fandom, there was a search tool on the archive and a rather helpful tool to ‘open in new tab.’ 

There is a certain level of whiplash one gets from season his own name in a crossover work. But there it was. _Aziraphale (Good Omens)_ in a _His Dark Material’s_ work. 

He clicked on the tag and it took him to a shocking about of fanworks. Tens of thousands of works were in his name. It was all linked to a single work, Good Omens. According to Google, the book came out a year ago, give or take. 

***

You, the dear reader, reading a Good Omens fanfiction may be wondering, how does Good Omens exist in Good Omens. 

It all lies with the Antichrist himself Adam Young. When Adam was, well, young he’d accidentally stolen some knowledge from one Demon and one Angel’s head. It had been after the failed attempt to end the world and he still had some power and when he ran into Crowley and Aziraphale at Anathema and Newt’s wedding, where Shadwell and Madame Tracy were there as well he’d wanted to know what happened to them and wanted to know the Whole Story and then like a USB had been plugged into his head thousands of memories and flashes were pilled into his head. He’d gotten a headache and his wish. 

And he wrote down everything, knowing the chance of having everyone who was apart of the Nope Let’s Notpocalypse in the same room together, he made sure to write down every detail as he shifted through all the knowledge. It gave him a splitting headache but on a very large Google Doc he had the first draft of Good Omens—then called When The World Almost Ended and No One Noticed, he didn’t quite have titles down yet—at age 13. 

Over the next 20 years, Adam Young improved his writing and made sure that nothing correlated to the real work, the bookshop was named Ezra’s BookStore, Est 1876. 

Anathema and Newt kept their names but their last names were changed to Newall and Williams respectively. Antony J Crowley was a real person in the real word so Crowley’s fake name was now James A. Crowley and Aziraphale was now Antony Ezra. 

Warlock wasn’t too rare a name to stay, epically with the American diplomat part and the Nanny and gardener was something Warlock will definitely remember (if by chance he reads the book) so Warlock was now the son of a Canadian diplomat and was named Magnus Adams. 

The real Antichrist in this tale is named Ethan Allen. All of his friends got slightly different names Brian is Billy, Wensleydale is Wensley and Pepper is now Pep, short for Penelope. 

The publishing process was long and hard and the whole allure of his book was an absurd plot of what could have caused the mass hallucinations years ago, that almost everyone forgot about—Historical Fiction. 

The book, Good Omens by Adam Young was a bestseller and Crowley has heard of it but didn’t bother with it, he was too busy caught up in fanfiction for the new Game Of Thrones movie reboot series that was amazing. 

Now, back to The Revelation. 

***

Aziraphale saw that a miniseries was in production and the book was a bestseller, it had gotten rave reviews and with the Archive of Own Own tab with the pairing _Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)_ which had many thousands of works, Aziraphale called Crowley. 

Crowley picked up on the third ring. “Yes, angel?” 

“Hello to you,” Aziraphale said but his heart wasn’t in it. “Did you know what the young—well older Antichrist is up too.” 

“Uh, no, it’s been years since we’ve seen him.” 

“For someone so pop-culture savvy how have you not heard of _Good Omens.”_

“Good Omens? Yeah, I’ve heard of it, don’t know anything about it. What’s it gotta do with the Antichrist.”

“He wrote it.” 

“Good for him.” 

“Crowley it’s about us. It’s about Armageddon.” 

“What.” 

Aziraphale sighed and started his long-winded explanation, he recounted his adventures through the archives and finding of the book, it was an abridged version of the events to Aziraphale and it was still quite long but Crowley had all the time in the world. 

“He,” Aziraphale swallowed. “I read some of the um reviews and summaries and he included the deception of our sides.” 

“It’s a good thing they don’t read, right?” 

“I’m sure they don’t but Crowley how did he know, he knew about everything, our conversation 6,000 years ago in Eden is recounted word-for-word, it’s quoted on the site.” 

“Okay, so clearly reality bends to his will so at the wedding he must have sucked all the knowledge out of our heads.” 

“That’s an invasion of privacy,” Aziraphale muttered. He looked at his screen. He had recently figured out how to sort by kudos and the top-rated fic called _“i’d like for you and i to go romancing”_ by _dollsome (_ why the lack of capitalization) was open, he’d read a bit of it before he started his research and well there were some way too accurate things in the fic about their dynamic, about the secret yerning Aziraphale has to more human type of relationship. Don’t get him wrong, things between have been wonderful but they’ve been living as humans for so long and humans have their way of professing their love and he knows his love for Crowley is romantic, he’s known that since 1941 but he doesn’t have the nerve to act on it. 

“Sure is.” 

He almost said there is fanfiction of us but held his tongue he needed to do more research and he said his goodbyes and hung up. 

***

When one enters Archive of Our Own (not signed in) home page there is a blurb that reads “ _A fan-created, fan-run, nonprofit, noncommercial archive for transformative fanworks, like fanfiction, fanart, fan videos, and podfic.”_

Maybe Aziraphale should have paid more attention to the fanart because when he clicks on a work called _Polaroids_ by _gingerhaole_ his eyes are hurting from staring at a screen for so long he didn’t even read the summary and is greeted with a table of contents filled with well explicit things he can only next chapter out of morbid curiosity. 

The art is really beautiful and it looks really just like him, albeit in lingerie but still, Adam must have been a remarkable writer. He looked through the whole thing before coming across a fic with a particular summary that grabbed him.

_In the very Beginning of it all, there were an angel and... an angel. (You Forget We Were in Love by Captain_Slow)_

It’s many thousands of words but he reads them all in one sitting, taken by the writing, the fact that people do this for free, out of love (and this site was from Crowley) and the fact that the fic, well it could be true. The humans did their research, Crowley could very well be Raphael. He finds more fics with this premice 

At this point he’s read so many fics, so many they blur together. In many of them, Crowley has been in love with him many thousands of years. In some of them, they come together like asteroids on a collision course but in some of them it’s gentle, it’s like they were already there and just had to acknowledge it. They indulge, like in food and in sleep, in touch and human way of showing things. 

They have sex in some, in a lot of them and the fandom idea of Making an Effort isn’t very far off. Some of them are explorations of sexuality and gender. He spends days and days reading, devouring work after work. He’s long past just searching by kudos, he has filters and many tags open in different tabs. 

He cries as he reads “ _Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma: An Integrative Approach”_ by _Nnm_ and all the comments. He cries again as he reads “ _come as you are"_ by punkfaery and all the comments on that. He cries and cries at the honesty in the words, in the souls he sees bared in the words. 

There are so many more, so many ones when Crowley is desperate and longing for love he believes he can’t have. “You go to fast for me, Crowley” really was about how fast Crowley was heading towards a friendship and the promise of more. Aziraphale was slow to come to the conclusion he was in love, so terribly, humanly in love with Crowley but now he wanted more than anything to confess.

To confess slowly in a languid moment with a lazy kiss or loud and messy with a fight and revelation. He knows he wants to see if Crowley will gasp and wither under him, if he’s touch-starved and longing. He wants to whisper praise against Crowley’s skin.

He loved Crowley so much, in almost every way and wants him in any way he can have him. 

***

Crowley and him were drinking in the backroom when Aziraphale brought it up. That’s how it happened in so many fanfictions, that and the night he stayed over, he wished it had happened then but they were both so stressed nothing but a crash course of acting and practice happened. 

“You know the humans have fanfictions on us,” Aziraphale started, before he lost his nerve.

Crowley drank his wine, sprawled out across his couch. “I checked once I got off the phone with you.” 

“Did you read it?” 

“One or two. It was weird, couldn’t go on anymore.” 

“Well, you must remember, dear, it’s not really us, more of how Adam characterized us.” Which was to say painfully accurate. 

“You know they ship us, right,” Crowley got up to get some more wine, despite the fact the bottle wasn’t empty yet. Aziraphale, made stupid by fantasies of love grabbed his wrist. 

“They think we’d make a good pair,” Aziraphale whispered. “Romantically, some have rather deep works about love and sexuality and gender.” 

“You read them?” Crowley croaked, staring at Aziraphale’s hand, where it locked over his wrist. In some fics Crowley can feel his love, through and air and especially through touch. 

“I did.” 

Crowley’s throat clicked as he swallowed. “Why?” 

“Because Adam is an amazing author with many great fans,” Aziraphale said, pulled Crowley ever so gently forward. “Who got things very right.” 

In some fanfictions, this is where it happens, this kiss the confession. Or something else happens, Crowley, so overwhelmed leaves. In none that he’s read rejection has happened in a moment like this, without their sides breathing down their necks.

But now, in the real world, this painfully real world there is silence. Crowley doesn’t pull back and Aziraphale doesn’t move forward.

There is crippling silence. 

“In some of them, you were Raphael.” And we were in love in heaven. We were soulmates. 

Crowley laughed. “I could’ve been. But I don’t remember a thing, only what I did wrong.” 

“Would you tell me if you were?” 

Crowley gives him a look far too complex for Aziraphale to uncode. “When have I lied to you?” 

“Never.”

The real reason none of them have made a move was because this world they’ve been living in, The Rest of Their Lives felt so fragile. They were good with what they had, not wanting to push too far so that everything they’ve built comes crashing down.

It loud and quiet as Aziraphale stood up. It was loud and quiet as the stepped closer to Crowley. It was so crushingly complex, all the years behind, what they risk in this moment, they could ruin their friendship.

Aziraphale moved his hand form Crowley’s wrist to his hand, he lifted it to his lips, like a proper gentleman. Crowley’s reaction is to turn his head away, eyes still covered by his sunglasses. The fanfictions were right about that too; he loved Crowley’s eyes. 

Crowley, slowly, looked back at him. “Am I reading this situation wrong, because I can’t—I can’t take it—” 

Aziraphale cuts him off as kissed the palm of Crowley’s hand and slid a hand around his waist. “Tell me to stop.” 

Slow and fast. 

“Never.” 

This wasn’t words on a screen, this was real. Crowley was here, in his bookshop, shaking a bit and every confession he’s ever needed on his face. 

He put Crowley’s hand on his neck and traced the outline of his jaw. He rather liked slow, slow and committed to every touch. Steady wins the race. But he needed a little fast because he was going to overflow if he didn’t kiss Crowley right now.

“Tell me to stop,” he repeated. “Once I start, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop.” 

Crowley looked shocked. He really shouldn’t. Once Aziraphale commits to something he’s all in, like the suit, like oysters, like reading. “Don’t stop, then.” 

And Aziraphale kisses him. 

It fills Aziraphale with so much love and stumbled forward, pushing Crowley against a bookshelf. He’s always been a hedonist and a very thorough one at that. He wants to lie Crowley down a devour him. He could kiss Crowley for hours, tasting the wine and ozone on his lips. 

He may have made the stars. Aziraphale loves the stars, just like he loves Hamlet and Archive of Our Own and they were all gifts to Aziraphale, even if he didn’t know it. 

Crowley pulled back, gasping for air, his lips kiss-swollen and red. He just looked at Aziraphale, his sunglasses were taken off and thrown to the side. Aziraphale hardly knew he was doing it. He dove back in, like Crowley was a dish he wanted to try again and again. 

Crowley was squirming, so clearly overwhelmed and gripping as Aziraphale like he could steady him. Aziraphale could, he tightened his grip around Crowley’s waist and held him still. 

“I love you,” Aziraphale said before it consumed him, he mouthed it against Crowley’s lips and pulled back to say it again. “I love you.” 

“I—” Crowley’s eyes were wild. “I love you, too,” Crowley threw his head back as Aziraphale kissed his throat. “I’ve been trying to tell you for years.” 

“I know,” Aziraphale said. “I know, now.” 

“Don’t forget it,” Crowley murmured. 

He needed to know one more thing. “How long?” he scrapped his teeth up Crowley’s neck. “Have you known you were in love with me.”

“The Garden, angel. You and your stupid sword. You?” 

“The Church,” Aziraphale slid his hand up and down Crowley’s sides, reveling in the feel of him, how he feels as he shakes and tries to keep still. He could do this for hours. 

And he did for hours and hours. 

What happened in those hours? Maybe someone will write a fanfiction of it. 

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to include so many more fanfictions but I went through ao3 like I was Aziraphale and handpicked the ones I think he'd like, ones about his demon.


End file.
